Wheelchair Accessible Lifestyle

Wanting to be a mother for many years and attempting to conceive for six years, I found out I was pregnant with my daughter on Valentine’s Day 2013. After experiencing the recent passing of my father, I was elated with the news of pregnancy. My only tell-tale side effect of pregnancy was the extreme nausea. All went very well until approximately 20 weeks gestation when I started to frequently experience issues with recurrent urinary accidents and autonomic dysreflexia due to my expanding uterus and her fancy foot work.   My 3rd trimester was more difficult due to autonomic dysreflexia including cold sweats, high blood pressure, and urinary tract infections that required me to be on daily antibiotics. Antibiotics quickly became resistant to the “bad bugs” and needed to be changed frequently. At 32 weeks gestation, I experienced extreme AD which triggered preterm labor.  Having an excellent obstetrician in high risk pregnancy, my physician was able to control the AD and stop my labor.  I remained hospitalized with constant monitoring until 35 weeks and discharged home on bed rest until 38 weeks.  On the morning of October 14th, 2013, I anxiously arrived at the hospital for an induction of labor.  Labor progressed but complications with my daughter’s heart rate quickly led to an emergency caesarean section but my beautiful baby girl was born at 7:19pm at 38 weeks.  She just celebrated her first birthday and she continues to be the light of our life.  She is a happy, thriving little girl and we are so blessed to have her in our lives.

August of 2002 was a month that, in my mind, will be the craziest month of my life.  That was the month that our family’s world would be put completely upside down. My husband was given the news of my paralysis and my pregnancy.  That’s right. Let’s stop there for a moment and let that sink in……Paralyzed and Pregnant. Katie’s husband was unaware of her pregnancy.  He is told, not only that his wife was hospitalized and paralyzed, but also PREGNANT.

The vast emotions that Katie’s husband must have been experiencing must have been mind-boggling but there is so much more to her story.  Let’s ROLL right into the middle of Katie’s pregnancy and continue her account.

Obviously I was a “High Risk” pregnancy so I was required to have frequent physician visits.  The way that I felt, sickness, and how my body was changing, baby bump, was very similar to my first pregnancy before my paralysis so I wasn’t worried with how I was progressing.  But at 28 weeks, my doctor wanted to check me in to the hospital to run some tests because they didn’t feel that my daughter was the correct size that she should be.  We were told because I was unable to walk or give her the necessary abdominal space to grow, she had positional club feet.

So there I was, in the hospital again, 28 weeks pregnant, being hooked up to heart rate monitors and tests of that nature.  After the third day of hospitalization, I woke up feeling like something was not “right”.  I quickly called the nurses to let them know that my body was telling me that something was different.  They discovered that I was dilated to 3 cm.  They moved me over to the Labor and Delivery wing and hooked me up to a continuous fetal heart rate monitor.

Now keep in mind, I’m still new to the world of paralysis and still learning how I should be feeling, thinking, doing, and what I should be worried about.  I am sitting in a hospital gown, in a bed, and with the covers pulled up to my waist.  No one had talked with me about the things that I should be doing or checking in regards to my pregnancy.  I completely trust the fact that I am in a hospital with nurses and doctors who should know what to do with the patients, specifically ME, who is high risk and paralyzed, right?!

Hours later, I am starving at this point and getting completely annoyed, especially since our TV didn’t work in the room.  A wound care nurse comes in to check my back incision and to look for pressure sores.  I roll over to my side at which point she asks “Is this it? Um?”  She calls my husband over who immediately runs out of the room and comes back with 3 or 4 nurses.  They flip me back on to my back, pull off the blanket and lift up my gown.  I overhear one of the nurses say to another “She has had the baby and has lost it.”

What? WHAT?! But yes. There between my legs was my daughter.  Bruised.  Bloody. Not breathing.  All 1lb 12oz of her.  They immediately cut the cord and rushed her to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to resuscitate her. I was in pure shock.  Of course I was a bawling mess wondering how, in the hell, could this happen IN a hospital.  Shouldn’t have the nurses and doctors advised me on what to do? What to look for?  What to be thinking or feeling or checking?!

The reality is that being 5 months post paralyzed and pregnant is a VERY rare situation.  No one knows exactly what to do or to expect.  Hind sight is 20/20.  Obviously now I would know a lot more of the answers and of the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting and Paralyzed”!  It was pure craziness!  I would have been sitting there with the gown at my waist and the blanket down to my knees, watching, checking, and looking NON STOP!

Miraculously they were able to get her breathing and flew her to a better hospital that had the specific breathing ventilator that she needed.  She was in critical condition but slowly she began to improve and continued to improve.  

Four months later, she was home, and we began to discover what this crazy life had in store for us! We’re still learning!  Our daughter will turn 12 years old in a couple of months and I can’t believe it!  I still look at our miracle child and shake my head.  How blessed and thankful we are.  You just never know why things happen the way that they do, but they do.  We each have a story and it’s by the sharing of these stories that we remember and learn.  At least that’s what I’ve learned and tell myself!

The most pressing question I had for my doctors was about pregnancy. I was 18 and being a mom was incredibly important to me. I couldn’t imagine not experiencing pregnancy. Let’s fast forward 5 years and I was pregnant for the first time. I didn’t know any other wheelchair mommies. I found an amazing doctor, but I was his first SCI pregnancy patient. The entire pregnancy was amazing and uneventful. I felt the baby kick around 14-16 weeks. We didn’t take any special precautions. As I neared the end of my pregnancy, we discussed delivery. I had titanium rods and couldn’t bear down while lying down. I had huge concerns that I would try pushing and not be able to deliver vaginally. We opted for a medically necessary cesarean. I would go in fresh and I would know exactly what was going to happen. The only glitch we had been with my epidural. We suspected it wouldn’t work and it didn’t. I have just enough feeling in my lower abdomen that we would have to use general anesthesia. This meant my husband had to wait outside the door. They handed him the baby within minutes and I was nursing less than 30 minutes later. My second pregnancy was identical to the first, except for a placental abruption that wasn’t related to the SCI. I saw a high risk doctor for my 3rd pregnancy because of the prior abruption. He didn’t feel it was necessary but my regular OB/GYN wanted the extra set of eyes. The entire pregnancy was uneventful. My water broke at 37 weeks, just 2 hours before my scheduled cesarean section. We were planning an early delivery after an amniocentesis showed fully matured lungs. (Amniocentesis is a procedure in which a sample of amniotic fluid is obtained to be tested to determine whether the baby’s lungs are mature enough for birth).   I had the amniocentesis because I started to feel “off” and we wanted to prevent a second abruption. I would have to say all 3 pregnancies were incredibly normal.